I'll Find What I've Been Seeking
by Pforte
Summary: Remus tries to make it work, to live his dream, but some things are just not meant to be. RemusTonks, RemusSirius. Set during DH.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. The Harry Potter universe was created by JK Rowling and consequently belongs to her and her various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Note: **This was written for the lgbt fest on livejournal. My prompt was: _Remus Lupin. He'd hoped marriage would make him straight. __It didn't._

* * *

**I'll Find What I've Been Seeking **

The morning sun shines warmly through the window and illuminates her contours. She is the image of peacefulness and embodies the kind of domestic bliss he has always craved and envied. Her hair reaches over her ears now, a turquoise tangle spread out like a fan on the black bedcovers. Looking down he can see the swelling of her breasts and the slight curve of her belly where there has been flatness before. She is smart and beautiful, kind and mischievous: Nymphadora Lupin, his wife. Young and innocent as she looks in her sleep, she carries the impossible child. Remus wonders if it will be more like her or himself. He supposes that every father has the same thoughts but everything that should be normal in his life has a dark facet. While other parents may ponder if their little darling will have mummy's eyes or daddy's chin, he anxiously deliberates whether its ability to change its appearance will induce laughter or whether the transformation will be forced out of its little body, an excruciating cross it will bear as long as it lives. Doubt is a powerful sentiment and Remus can't say he welcomes it.

Dora turns onto her back, sighing contentedly in her sleep. And why shouldn't she be happy? She got all she wanted, he thinks almost resentfully. At first, Remus found her persistence annoying and, considering their age difference, more than a little worrying. But after Sirius' death there was no one left who would know that flirting back, laughing with her and kissing her was only another way of pretending. He tried to make it real, to leave _that_ side of himself behind, but the first time he closed his eyes while making love to her, imagining hard angles where Tonks was soft and yielding, imagining a stubbly cheek roughening the skin around his mouth instead of perfect smoothness, imagining a hard cock pressing into his thigh where his wife was all receiving and _wanting_, he knew that he had lost. No, Remus Lupin cannot embrace normalcy, even if it's sprouting rainbow-coloured hair and the ability to make him feel wanted.

"Have you been watching me long?" Dora mumbles and turns to him with a smile. Her whole face lights up. Pregnancy suits her.

"No," Remus lies and smiles back. He is still smiling when she leans in for a kiss. Her lips pressed tenderly against his, he knows that he loves her, he really does. He just doesn't desire her.

When she pulls back, he sees that her eyes are a dark grey this morning and he is surprised to feel a hint of pain. Well, she is related to him after all, so he shouldn't be surprised when detecting a resemblance every now and then. Remus rarely thinks of him these days because he is still alive and doesn't owe him anything anymore. The sight of grey eyes usually no longer haunts him but seeing them in the face of his wife is a different story.

"Not long before I'll feel him or her moving around, mum says." Dora smiles and pulls his hand against her belly. It's a miracle – not only that the baby growing inside her is part of him, but also that she wants him to touch her. Him, the monster. He hasn't yet wrapped his mind around the idea that she's really pleased about this pregnancy. As an Auror, she must know about the laws, about the ongoing and increasingly strong discrimination against werewolves, the deep-seated fear of the likes of him. How could she possibly want that for her child? He withdraws his hand.

"Stop brooding, Remus. It'll be fine. There is no precedence of children inheriting the werewolf gene," she tells him for the hundredth time. Yes, she knows him well, just not the part he has hidden from her.

"That's because we don't usually procreate, Dora, which you know very well," he answers, a little sharper than intended. She pulls away to have a better look at him, her jaw set in determination. _He_ used to do that, too, but contrary to his cousin's daughter, he would then proceed to develop a major sulk. It's during moments like these that Remus misses him the most.

"Do we have to go through this again?" his wife asks wearily and he _aches_. No, she shouldn't have to suffer. It's not her fault that he made a mistake and gave in to her and the promise of normalcy and happiness. It's not her fault that the world is the way it is, not her fault that he cannot stop wanting what she can never be.

"I'm sorry," he says gently and reaches out to cup her face. Her eyes grow soft immediately. She is so ready to be loved. And he used to believe that he was ready to love her.

* * *

"Oh my God, Remus, where have you been? I was so worried, I thought --" Tonks breaks off. They both know what she thought. Voldemort is on the rise and people die left and right. If the person standing in front of him – cheeks reddened from anxiety and eyes glowing with relief – had been Sirius he would have said something along the lines of him having been out looking for a shag, because he didn't do it for him anymore, and they would have laughed and the tension would have gone away. But he can't say it now because it would be true and nothing to laugh about.

Remus isn't one for absolutes. When Tonks first kissed him after an Order meeting, he didn't think about it as an impossibility. He has always preferred blokes but that doesn't mean anything or so he told himself. In sixth year, he used to have wet dreams about Lily Evans. A year later he started having an on-and-off relationship with Sirius Black that ended abruptly in 1981. Some people would say that he just needed the time to accept what and who he was. Some people, he thought, could go fuck themselves. Remus Lupin has been trying to come to terms with what he was since he was bitten by Fenrir Greyback. The world would be better off if people just stopped putting everyone and everything in quaint little categories. And if he decided to find himself some happiness in marriage, that was none of their business, right? It didn't have to be a lie, did it?

These thoughts don't help him now that he is confronted with his rightfully worried wife. How can he tell her why he disappeared without a word right after dinner, why standing against a wall in a back alley during heavy rain was preferable to sitting with her – only because a bloke was kneeling in front of him, sucking him off? How can he tell her that he needs these stolen hours in order to be a good husband to her?

"I'm sorry. I needed to clear my head," he tells her calmly and sheds his drenched cloak.

"Well, next time leave a note," she says curtly. He goes over to her and kisses her on the cheek. She smells of strawberries.

"I'm really sorry," he repeats. Right after he had come into the other man's mouth he had promised himself never to do this again. But now, standing in the kitchen with his pregnant wife, he knows that he was only kidding himself. Maybe it would work if he had never given in to that black-haired boy with the easy smiles and unfathomable grey eyes. Maybe, if he had never experienced that sharp desire that usually overcame him when he was with a man, he could be happy and content with what he has with Nymphadora. Maybe, if she didn't remind him of _him_, he could be faithful to her and face whatever storms they would have to weather.

But Remus isn't fond of maybes because his life is currently nothing but, and there has to be more.

* * *

There used to be more. He remembers a time when lying in bed, kissing _him_, was the best thing he could think of. There used to be hot summer nights they spent at the lake near Sirius' house. Remus remembers how the sand was still warm against his skin when they fucked after the first swim. Sand in private places, sand everywhere, but all he could feel then was _his_ hands all over him, his cock hot and sticky against his own. He remembers all too vividly, remembers the way he threw his head back and laughed, remembers how his teeth flashed in the moonlight. He remembers what it felt like to be so hopelessly in love that a soppy grin was plastered on his face in the morning, before he even opened his eyes.

Remus folds his newspaper and looks over the table at his wife. She is so young. Even at her age he was jaded already.

"What do you think about visiting my parents for dinner?" she asks, happy about his attention.

"Why not?" He shrugs. Deep down, he's afraid that Andromeda knows. She used to be close to _him_ and discretion was never his strong suit. But he is dead now, dead like Lily and James. Remus had tried to replace him once in the late 80s but it was nearly impossible to find someone who accepted his furry little problem along with his love for cock. No, he had found that he was better off alone.

"Great. I'll write an owl right away," Dora says happily and gets up. She is acceptant of the wolf all right, though he cannot wrap his mind around the why. She can never know about his other secret. It would break her heart.

As she bends over the kitchenette, he sees how swollen her body is already. God, he needs to get out of this before things go to hell.

* * *

"No, I refuse to skulk around the subject any longer, Remus!" she states adamantly and shuts the door behind her with a bang. Her eyes are a fierce green, blazing in intense fury.

"What do you want me to say?" he asks guardedly. He feels panic welling up inside him and there is the taste of bile in his mouth. What if she knows? The evening with her parents did go well or so he thought. Maybe Andromeda told her something while they were in the kitchen.

"I want you to be honest for once. You've been brooding and moping for months now. I've been patient, telling myself that you have to get used to the thought of becoming a father. But you won't get used to it, will you? You plan on spending the entire pregnancy feeling sorry for yourself and worrying about our future."

In spite of his frustration and anger, he is almost giddy with relief that she is only addressing the werewolf issue. "In case you haven't noticed, Dora, there are a lot of things to worry about. I won't ever get a job and our family _will be shunned_. These aren't my fantasies, that's reality."

"I know all that." Her voice almost turns over with irritation. "But I love you and that should be enough!"

He stares at her blankly. It should be, she is absolutely right. And he is an absolute prick for getting her into this mess.

* * *

He can just make out her sleeping form in the dark. Without making any noise he levitates a few socks, pants and shirts in his battered travelling bag. It's not the first time he has to leave in the middle of the night and he knows the house well enough to find his way. At the door, he turns to have a last look at her. Betrayal is nothing new to him but she hasn't tasted it yet. She doesn't deserve waking alone, doesn't deserve going through the pregnancy without him at her side. But she doesn't deserve a husband whose every kiss is a lie, either. As much as he wants to, he can't change the fact that he's a werewolf. As much as he tried, he can't change the fact that he is queer. He can't run from the first but he doesn't have to pretend to be straight. It was a nice dream but it's over. The door closes behind him.

In the morning, he's brought as much distance between her and himself as possible. It was the right thing to do and his eyes are so dry they hurt.

In the morning, she finds his note, reads it disbelievingly and cries.

_Fin_

* * *

Now that you've read it, please take a minute and let me know what you think!


End file.
